A new review has appeared of On Spec issue 79, the one that ran “For Simple Coin.”

I wish I could claim this was a big, long loving review of my story, but it’s nice just to see it considered “A solidly entertaining piece.”

Now that Dark Horizons is done (penultimate chapter posting Thursday, August 5 and the final, denouement chapter coming August 12) maybe I can turn my attention to getting some of my languishing short fiction done and sent out, if only so it can get rejected!

You can find the review here.

You can find Dark Horizons here.

Okay, so here’s the latest brainstorm, courtesy of the Crystal Method’s Vegas album, but more specifically supported by Keep Hope Alive, the awesome tune that intro’d Chow Yun Fat in the fun but ultimately forgettable Replacement Killers. That movie remains a go-to movie for me because it has Mr. Chow, it has Mira Sorvino being all hot and action-y, and it tries to bring John Woo’s Gun-fu to North America along with Mr. Chow. Unfortunately, it just isn’t a great movie.

In any case, on the way to work this morning and I’m on the bus, listening to tunes. As has happened so often in the past, that leads to the plotting out of a movie and even a couple of scenes.

The elevator pitch? The cast of the Guild as a team of extra-terrestrial technology recovery specialists called Echo Transit 1.

You need more details before you decide to invest in this movie/mini-series/TV series? Why certainly.
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Realms of Fantasy has been having a hard time. Basically dying, then being resurrected, it is now on life support.

I feel bad about that. I honestly do. Any loss of a short fiction market is a blow to all short fiction writers. The thing is, I’m not going to feel the pain as a reader because I don’t read the magazine. I haven’t submitted to it since I’ve stopped reading it and the reason for both is the same: lack of my kind of fantasy.

In my old writing group, the magazine was known as Realm (singular) of Fantasy, because it was very focused on particular kind of fantasy—urban fantasy. This, actually, isn’t true, and it seems even less true now. Upon hearing that things are looking rocky for RoF, I went and checked the Tangent reviews for some issues. It seems that while the magazine has branched out, it still steers pretty clear of what I would like to read—fantasy with magic and swords.

I usually don’t dig modern myths and fable-based narratives. That’s a generalization, of course. I’m sure there’s a story out there that would entertain me, but it’s not a genre I seek out. Nor is urban fantasy, or modern magic realism. I like Robert E Howard. I like Fritz Leiber. I like Dave Duncan, David Drake, and David Gemmell.

I love Guy Gavriel Kay and Glen Cook.

These are not the kinds of stories I would find in RoF.

Sadly enough, there are very, very few professional level heroic fantasy periodicals. That’s why I’ve renewed my subscription to Black Gate.

Should that venue disappear, then you could expect some drama over here.

Philotos would like to have been in bed. Most civilized men were. The Urban Tribune looked at the multitude of papers before him. He had reports about the Imperial Navy massing near trade routes, and of the Vast Kingdoms advocating a crusade against the godless, forgetting that Hadrapole probably had more gods and priests than any other damn hole in the world. Beside these reports rested another notice from the Prefects stating that they might be unable to pay the legion until they gathered greater revenues.

Always the same, the reports and notices of gloom and doom always kept him awake at nights and in the end amounted to nothing. These were not the threats about which he should worry.

Unfortunately, he could only answer these threats.
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The door swung open at the barest of touches. Chang stood and watched it. No one emerged. He stepped inside and looked about. It was darker inside the room than on the unlit streets. Chang closed the door. He did not wish to be outlined for anyone who might await within.

Feeling about, Chang found the stairs. He hoped that Martos had kept his word. It would be most unfortunate if he had killed the wizard Arnmir for no purpose. Chang listened at the stairs and heard nothing, but he believed he saw light at the top.
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The first time we met I told you I was a detective . . . I work at it, lady, I don’t play at it.

–Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Yeah, I want to write dialogue like that.

The two adepts, Serilo and Anasius, watched over their sleeping mentor. Many guests had visited that day, paying respects to Arnmir. A great outcry had greeted the report of his death, and when the rumor of poisoning reached the Arcanum Guild, they vowed they would find the culprit.

Three bells rang from Peril’s Tower, marking the third hour since sunset. It had been only an hour since the last of the visitors had left. The adepts sat at a table eating a light meal, not two paces from the coffin in which their master lay. Only a small amount of food remained from the great banquet offered in honor of the wizard. It had been speedily prepared, but still exquisite.
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I just put up a post over at SEP regarding delays in the serial fiction/novel Dark Horizons. I mention it here, because it talks about the writing process.

I used to try to be a “seat of my pants” writer. I would start with an idea, and move forward. Sometimes I knew the ending, sometimes I didn’t, but I just wrote until I couldn’t write any longer.

I will admit I did a fair amount of writing like that. The thing is, I didn’t finish much. That which I did finish, failed to satisfy. I wrote mostly long fiction, so I guess—in a way—it is understandable that so little was actually completed. Still, this also applied to my short fiction.

If you will excuse the digression, I am not—primarily—a short fiction author. That is because I am not—primarily—a short fiction reader. In my experience, one writes what one would like to read. For me, that’s long format fiction. I got into short fiction because that’s one way to “break through.” I intended to get some short fiction under the belt, then get my agent, then publish my novels.

Of course, then I stopped being prolific, and here we are.

Digression complete. Back to the topic at hand.

I learned that I needed a roadmap. I needed to plot out even my short fiction. I had to know how I was getting from A to B. I’m not saying every writer needs this, but I did.

It got my short fiction published.

Every short story that I have sold was plotted out from the beginning. Every story I am working on now (three . . . and they’ve been around for years, so don’t hold your breath) is plotted out. That does not mean they end up as intended.

As I mention in my SEP post, characters can take control of a story. Events in the story can change. While writing, I sometimes realize that a planned event or character action doesn’t really work, and by changing it, I change the story. None of this matters. Because I have the roadmap there, I can make detours and still stay on course.

None of the three stories I have sold (two now published, one coming soon!) match their original plan. They all changed—sometimes drastically. The setting of Flotsam (basically a floating suburb of wrecks and scavenged material held together by ropes and chains) from “Flotsam Jewel”—published in the now defunct Forgotten Worlds—was a later addition. It changed a lot of the story, but just the details. For “A Pound of Dead Flesh,” coming soon from Black Gate, the main villain changed, and this totally changed the climax of the story.

I need a roadmap to begin journey. I still do a lot of “seat of my pants” writing, but having a map helps me to “stay on target.” Porkins would be proud.

Arnmir’s house was in the Ruscirian Quarter. Oil lamps burned on tall poles along the cobblestone roads. The heavy tread of the men of the Blackstaves could be heard echoing between the walls of the various estates. Arnmir’s estate sat in the southwest of the Quarter, a short walk to the Prefecturate for its occupant.

A brick wall, the height of a tall man, surrounded Arnmir’s residence. The second floor could be seen over the wall, lights burning behind the shutters. The gate was a single wooden door, reinforced by a metal frame. Two men stood before it. They nodded to the two Blackstaves walking past, swinging the black truncheons from which their nickname sprang.
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I’ve written a lot about sword noir. Most of that has been for gaming. What about those who write?

Here’s  a short story that I wrote a long time ago. It was presented on the AtFantasy Fiction Archive way back before the new millennium. Going through my old stories, I found it and was amazed at how something so far back in my catalogue could address so directly a lot of the aspects of the sword noir definition.
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